Inside The Creative Mind (And Heart) Of One New Yorker Cartoonist

One of the perks of being a New Yorker cartoonist is that you get to hang around with interesting people. My fellow cartoonists are all interesting, and all highly creative. One such colleague is Victoria Roberts. Victoria and I have been friends since she began drawing cartoons for The New Yorker in 1988; I began there just a few years earlier. I admire her work tremendously. Since we have known each other, I was fortunate to feature her cartoons and writing in my book Sex and Sensibility and she has been on panels and in exhibits that I have curated.

Her work is like no other and her voice is unique. Victoria[/entity]'s pen line is whimsical yet what she has to say with her pen can be quite profound. Her new book is no exception. It is a novel titled After The Fall, and is a wonderful combination of Victoria's drawings and writing. It's a story about New York city, family and, in her words, "what would happen if you fell through the cracks."

Victoria and I have talked in depth about our craft over the years, and I was excited when she agreed to be interviewed here. I wanted to ask her about her wonderful new book, which is loosely drawn from experiences in her own life. But I also wanted to give you a peek into the odd professional life of a New Yorker cartoonist, through Victoria's words. She speaks eloquently about our world--the trials and tribulations, as well as the joys of being a cartoonist for The New Yorker.

Liza: What made you want to create an illustrated novel? Where did the seed of this idea come from?

Victoria: I've been thinking about this story for twenty-five years. It has two seeds. I had just come to live back in New York City when the idea came to me.

I was born in New York City but grew up in Mexico City and Australia. All I ever wanted to do was come back to New York City and work for The New Yorker or Sesame Street. I used to watch “Taxi” and dream about being back here. By the time I got here I was twenty-nine. I had done a lot of work as a cartoonist as I started publishing cartoons and illustrations when I was sixteen.

I found myself in New York City trying to get work. I lived not far from Central Park and I would go there everyday and at one point I thought “I could just disappear here”-if I didn’t get into The New Yorker, or get some sort of work. Australia has a safety net, there is health insurance and when I lived there education was not only free but because I was self-supporting through art school my studies were subsidized-I was almost paid to go to school, and there were no art school fees. The US felt by contrast like a place without a safety net, where if you fell, it would just be a free fall. It was terrifying. Anyway. I thought about a family that loses their money one day and wakes up in Central Park, from one day to the next. I spent a lot of time in the park because somehow I knew exactly where each member of the family lived in the park. I had the premise of the story for many years, but not the story, nor a way of telling a story like that because there is nothing funny about being homeless.

“After the Fall” evolved into being the story of my family, the second seed. I put the family in the park so that they would be free of outside influences, and I could focus on the inalienable bonds of family. The family I loved so was lost to divorce, and it wasn’t until long after I had written the story that I realized I tried to do in fiction what had not happened in real life-keep the family together.

Liza: You have been drawing cartoons for the New Yorker for a long time. How has working for the magazine changed over the years?

Victoria: All I ever wanted to do was to be a New Yorker cartoonist. It was a place to me, almost more than a magazine, where there was a sense of wonder and a deep respect for curiosity and humanity. Even when I was a kid, I don’t know if it was the typeface or what, but it was like a life raft, salvation from family discord. I still feel it’s a miracle that I got to grow up to be a New Yorker cartoonist!

I love the magazine and it’s the top gig in town, but it has never been easy to work for, because you take your goods to market every week and sell or don’t sell, even when you “belong” to the magazine ie. are under contract. The rejection, a lot of it, is always there and I think it was Peter Steiner who coined the phrase “emotional spaghetti” when referring to what it’s like to submit ten or fifteen cartoons weekly and hope for a sale. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to a psychiatrist in an effort not to take the rejection personally, and I’m sure a few of my colleagues have too.

It’s a lot tougher nowadays because in the “old” days when you were accepted by the magazine you were “in” and sold enough cartoons a year to make it a pleasure to submit and have a sense of success and accomplishment. Now you don’t know if you will sell five cartoons in a year or twenty-five. It’s quite scary professionally, and demoralizing when you are taking your work in on a weekly basis. It’s so tough for young people who get into the magazine, sell a few drawings, but are not taken on as New Yorker cartoonists like they used to be.

They are much more gag oriented in the choice of cartoons presently, which isn’t my strong suit. I love characters and dialogue. My characters pretty much run the show. I just do their bidding. I love drawing my couple who have been in a relationship for many many years and can be funny without telling a joke.

These are very difficult times in this country and the world over, and I miss the sense of wonder of Mr. Shawn’s [editor William Shawn] day, both in the cartoons and in the covers. I know that the old covers in particular were criticized for being “bland”, but their art delighted. There’s something to be said for delight.

I just turned my website into a store somewhat and have been surprised at the number of private commissions I’m getting from people who want a cartoon portrait of their pugs, or cat-or a strip about a day in their lives. Now that sounds like it isn’t a big deal but it means that the personal, the detail, which is what I enjoy most of all about working, is alive and well and still beloved. That I can make people happy was the original goal in my work-and even if that has become less fashionable in print-I’m fulfilling it again thanks to the web.

Liza: How do you define a New Yorker cartoon, or can you? And how do you feel about the future of single panel cartooning?

Victoria: A New Yorker cartoon can be so many things, from a Barsotti to a Jack Ziegler to an Addams, to your own work, Liza-all of these artists work in very different ways. The only common denominator for a New Yorker cartoon is the originality and singularity of the work. And a lot of the fun in looking at the cartoons in the magazine weekly, which was the first thing people used to do, is that they worked as an ensemble.

There are fewer and fewer markets for single panel cartooning but it’s such a wonderful medium that I don’t think it will disappear. It’s waning, but will wax again!

Liza: You and I are aware that we are in the minority as women in the cartoon department. Why do you think that is?

Victoria: Machismo? The cartoons are bought exclusively by men (I think?) . Men and women do have very different sensibilities and I don’t think you have to be of the gender to work with the gender, but there is a very male almost college humour stand-up sensibility in the editing of the cartoons at present. Are guys more likely to do this kind of work? I’m not sure. In Mr. Shawn’s day, when the cartoons were less topical or news related there were still more men than women working as cartoonists. I just don’t know.